The inaugural title in Wave’s Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry is actually a pair of books, packaged as one, that includes talks on poetry delivered in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities across the United States in 2014. In The Lives of the Poems, Joshua Beckman, an editor at Wave, offers three variations of the same talk that—through repetition and adjustment—illuminate the intimate experience of making a particular set of poems. In Three Talks, he explores the fluid social dynamics of poetry as it lives between readers, poems, and books. A unique presentation of personal, intellectually curious, and provocative talks, The Lives of the Poems and Three Talks provides rare insights into a deeply literary life.
